Tag Archives: Cake

I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants. ~ A. Whitney Brown

There’s something a little sassy about becoming a vegetarian. Maybe it’s because the perception of a vegetarian is often of a tie-dye, Birkenstock wearing hippie who meditates and chants “I love the earth” while she smokes a J. Well, I wear Birkenstocks and I do love the earth but like most vegetarians, I certainly don’t fit the stereotype. Instead, I roll my eyes at the assumption and give a little sass. Heart Disease? Psh, I cut my risk by 70%. Cancer? Psh, I’m 50% less likely to be diagnosed.

All sass aside, it is nice to be cognizant of what effects different foods have on your body and mind, and it is nice to feel that you have some control over how your food is processed and how your choice of meals impact the environment. I’ve begun my vegetarian research, starting with a fabulous book called Becoming Vegetarian (clever, eh?).

This book is perfect for an English major because words like “homocysteine” and “lycopene” are broken down. Charlotte Bronte certainly doesn’t use these words, so how would I know what they mean? I needed a veggie book to spell it out. On my vegetarian reading list: the classic Diet for a Small Planet by Francis Moore Lappe, Good Food Today, Great Kids Tomorrow by Jay Gordon, and a number of cookbooks.

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So I have been staying with my fun and charming Uncle Joe and Aunt Candy in Sherrills Ford, NC until Jeremy and I can move into our Asheville house on July 1st. While here, Joe, Candy, and I have experimented with recipes, and as of today (I say in a proud, stoic voice) I began triathlon training again. If you’re interested in trying a new kind of chocolate cake (which as a chocoholic was hard for me to do), try out this vegan cake that Candy and I successfully attempted at about 12:30am yesterday. (Side note: please forgive my horrible picture-taking ability. Once I am employed, I aim to buy a real camera that takes real pictures and then learn to use it).

We took the recipe from Eat for Health:

It is a surprisingly simple recipe to follow: Preheat oven to 350. Mix flour, baking powder, and baking soda in small bowl and set aside. In blender/processor, puree 3 cups of the dates, pineapple, banana, and applesauce.

Add the blended mixture. Bake for an hour! And you will get this slightly alien-looking chocolate cake…

But the best part of this recipe is the Chocolate Nut Icing: 1 cup raw macadamia nuts, 1 cup vanilla soy milk, 2/3 cup pitted dates, 1/3 cup hazelnuts, 2 tbs cocoa powder, 1 tsp vanilla — puree all. (And for those of you not interested in eating a vegan cake–of which you are not blamed–this icing would be delish on some chocolate chip cookies…).

Although this doesn’t look all that appetizing, it was a nice snack in the middle of the night when Candy and I finally finished it…